Ep 34: How art therapy can be effective with teens

My guest today is  Natalie DeFay-Foster, a licensed associate marriage and family therapist at Integrative Art Therapy in Phoenix, Arizona. Natalie is a trained Clinical Art Therapist and specializes in working with adolescents, adults and families. I am excited to speak with her today in how art therapy can be beneficial in working with teen girls and their parents.

In this episode you will learn:

• You don’t need any previous art experience to participate
• Art therapy can deepen and change family relationships
• Experiential vs just talk therapy

What is art therapy and its benefits

• Natalie share her personal experience with art therapy and how it benefited her family
  • It helped her brother “tell his story”
• Using expressive arts can be powerful
  • [spp-tweet tweet=”“You never know what is going to come up or show up on the canvas””]
• Is an explorative and insightful way to gain insight into your emotions or knowing yourself better
  • “There is always answers tucked into the art”
  • Another way to physically connect to your body and get out of your head
• Using expressive arts can be grounding for adults and teens
  • Grounding is to become closer to your body, to the earth, and more present

Benefits of art therapy with teens and parents

• Focus is on the art vs the teen being the issue
• It is rapid and a subtle process, experiential, in the moment
• It concretizes what is happening in the room
  • Whether is it exploring their weaknesses or past traumas-can help see it as apart from themselves
  • Can also celebrate the strengths
• Ability to control the process
• Can be fun
• Working with the family there are different assessments that can be done to explore patterns, hierarchy and alliances
  • Where does the person put themselves on the page
• Gives another way to express themselves, gain different understanding or perspective of family member
• The nonverbal process can actually improve communication and bring awareness to the person who doesn’t have a voice in the family

• “Well balanced family is each member gets to be seen and heard”

• Art can bring to light what isn’t working and family/teen can begin to change the art and behavior
• When you alter the art you alter yourself

Fears of art therapy

• Not an artist, haven’t done art before, etc
• Get to use insecurities in a non-judgmental way to explore and shift mindset
• Begin to embrace imperfection

More benefits

• Teens under more pressure these days
• Humans are meant to be in community
• Art has been around for centuries-it is powerful and raw and it becomes the subject in the room
• Helps restructure what is going on in the therapy room
• It can help improve structure within the family system
• Parent involvement is important when working with their teenager

Tips

• Experience teaches more
• For teens-“Allow themselves to be themselves”
• Use creativity in some way
• Keep an art journal

I have some upcoming announcements I will be making for both teen girls and their moms and I invite you to sign up for my newsletter. This podcast is also available on Stitcher, Google Play, YouTube and now iHeartRadio.

Natalie’s Information:

Website: www.integrativearttherapy.net